have more than a couple of minutes.'
'Right.'
A drive-by upload, the GCHQ woman had called it. Send an e-mail in HTML format to a target computer. Get someone with access to that e-mail to open it and click on a hypertext line. The result was an influx of code into the target computer — a carefully crafted virus, in fact — that took over that computer and gave the sender administrative control.
In short, the Adantis Queen's security and IT computer network was now being run by the Art Room, almost a thousand miles away. So far as the hijackers were concerned, everything was running normally… or it had been until Rubens had ordered the cameras switched off and the security overwatch display rerouted to the Art Room and switched off on the ship.
It gave Dean and his men a technological edge where they most needed one.
'Keep us posted,' Dean said. Swiftly he started peeling off his clothing.
'What the hell are you doing?' Howorth asked.
'Plan A,' Dean replied, standing on one foot as he peeled off the jumpsuit. 'Walters! You're with me!'
'Got it.'
Dean had to sit down to peel off the Polartec long johns. 'The rest of you.. police the area and get yourselves and all of your gear behind that bar. And… someone get that guy down off the robot.'
Operation Neptune had come in with two possible mission plans, depending on the situation they discovered when they got on board. While they were prepared to launch a general assault — Plan B — with some of them heading down to the cargo hold and the rest heading for the bridge, they were also prepared to carry out the original plan, which had been to infiltrate the ship by posing as passengers. Each of the Black Cat parachutists had a change of civilian clothing — jeans, pullover sweaters, socks, tennis shoes — rolled up inside the rucksack he'd carried secured to his harnesses during their jump.
'They're all on Deck Nine,' Rubens' voice said in Dean's head. 'Looks like they're sorting things out among themselves.'
Dean fastened his jeans and tugged his shoes on — to hell with the socks. As he dressed, he glanced around the casino, looking at the crowd surrounding them, trying to take their measure. A number of them were elderly. Others were younger but scared. There was always the possibility that one or more terrorists had infiltrated themselves among the hostages. In fact, in a normal hostage crisis takedown, the rescue team would be using zip strips to immobilize everybody they found inside, the objective, just in case.
That simply wasn't practical here — or desirable, given that they might need to move these people out quickly. But Dean was alert to the possibility that not all of these civilians were innocents.
He pulled his sweater down over his head, unholstered his pistol, a SIG Sauer P226, screwed the sound suppressor onto the muzzle, and tucked it into the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back, tugging the sweater's hem low to hide it. Nearby, Walters did the same.
'Listen up, people!' Dean called. 'When they come in here, as far as you know, a bunch of guys in black shot those three, then headed up the steps outside. We'll be watching, in case they try anything, okay?'
The crowd responded with a murmured assent.
'When are you getting us off the ship?' an older man called.
'As soon as we can. Be patient.'
'What if they're coming to kill us?' Howorth asked.
'We don't plan on letting them,' Dean replied. 'Your e-mails said they were probably taking people who got in the way to the theater, right?'
'That's right. Deck One, toward the bow.'
'If that bunch of tangos coming aft don't find us, either they're going to herd you all forward to be with the rest, or…'
'Or what?'
'Or we'll take them down here,' Dean said. He wouldn't admit to her that those tangos could be an execution squad. That was unlikely, though. The terrorists wouldn't start killing their hostages until they knew things were going bad.
Ten of the Black Cat team members vanished with weapons and gear into the bar area to one side of the casino, ducking low to stay out of sight. It wouldn't hide them if the tangos searched carefully, but Dean doubted that they would be in a patient mood.
The young man with glasses who'd been hovering near Howorth did something with his laptop, and the robot near the outside door opened its arms. Walters dragged the body to a spot near the door onto the deck and left it there with the AK beside it.
'Remember!' Dean told the quietly watching people. 'Guys in black came in, you're not sure how many. Maybe five or six. They shot these three, then went up the outside stairs.' According to the ship's deck plans he'd been studying, there were two sets of curving steps, port and starboard, leading from Deck Nine up to Deck Ten and an outside promenade running forward to the Kleito Bar. It would be a quick and immediate way to reach the bridge and the Security Office, an obvious attack route.
'They're coming your way,' Rubens said in Dean's ear. 'They're at the door'
Dean and Walters mixed in with the civilians, urging them to scatter more around the casino rather than provide a bunched-up target. The door at the back of the casino banged open, and six men in khaki with AK-47s burst inside.
They came in with their guns raised, ready to start shooting. 'Everybody stay where you are!' one shouted, his voice shrill. 'Everybody don't move!'
'Don't shoot!' Dean yelled. 'They're not here!' This was the critical moment. If this was an execution squad, they could start shooting in an instant. Dean wanted to get them talking instead.
'Who is not here?' one of the gunmen yelled back. The others advanced cautiously, weapons up.
'A bunch of guys all in black parachuted down on the pool deck!' Howorth called out. 'They… they shot your men!…'
'They're not here,' the guy with the laptop added. 'They all went back outside and up the stairs to Deck Ten!'
'How many?' the hijacker demanded. 'How many were there?'
'I'm not sure,' an elderly woman on the other side of the room said. 'Maybe five or six?'
The tangos advanced, then, some moving among the passengers, roughly shoving them aside, others making for the door leading outside. One checked the dead terrorist inside; another checked the two on the deck. One of them had a small, handheld radio and was talking into it in rapid-fire Arabic.
Dean watched as the terrorists gave the room a cursory check, though they never even approached the bar. The one with the radio began gesturing and shouting. 'All of you! We move you to safe location.'
'Wait!' Howorth said. 'Where are you taking us?'
'We take you someplace safe. Now move! Move!'
Dean allowed himself to be herded along, one of the passengers. The skinny guy started to pick up his laptop, but one of the gunmen jabbed the muzzle of his AK against the guy's side. 'No! You leave it!'
'But that's my computer!'
'Leave it, Jerry!' Howorth said. 'Damn it, you can get it later!…'
The crowd of civilians began moving out into the passageway, hurried along by their captors.
A group of eighteen or twenty of the civilians in the casino were older people, in their sixties or seventies or even older. One was a man in a wheelchair. Several of the women had walkers, and more were leaning on canes. As the gunmen hurried the mob forward toward the door, the group swiftly fell behind, unable to keep up. One of the gunmen shoved an elderly woman and knocked her down. The gunman snarled something and raised his rifle as if he was going to strike her with it.
Dean whirled and caught the terrorist's arm, stopping him. The man gaped at him, eyes wide.
'Don't,' Dean said in a firm voice. 'Don't. They're old; they can't hurt you.'
The gunman wrenched his arm free, then swung the butt of his rifle at Dean's face. Dean sidestepped, but
